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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Some time ago, I was recommended a song titled as "Simit Mimit" by Çağıl, a dear friend who is into animations. She also noted: "not very serious:P" :).

While its sound is between jazz, balkan and funk, the lyrics are simply a concatenation of names and expressions related to Istanbul. I could simply write pages on them:). Let me simply explain the title. Simit is a circular bread with sesame accompanying the beloved Turkish tea every morning and then.

That song reminded me immediately of another one, "Istanbul (Pas Constantinople)", a french-latin song in swing/jazz style, made by Ayhan Sicimoğlu & Latin All Stars in 2006. It is based on "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" composed by Nat Simon and Jimmy Kennedy in 1929.

Friday, November 16, 2012

The two movies that I’ve recently watched: "Katyn (2011)" and "Little Fugitive (1953)" made me think about the documentary genre. I cannot say I’m particularly fan of this genre, but I watch it often if there are things that can satisfy my curiosity. These can vary from scuba-diving or 'making of' footages to the ones that I come across on TV by pure coincidence (mostly on ARTE and France 5). However, these last two made me think that some movies can have documentary-like taste or value. Then of course, I started reading about them…

The first documentaries are, as you would guess, the one-minute long footages of Lumière Brothers. They are also the first attempts of film-making. The number of documentaries surged during the Great Depression and the War. Art is said to take shape during desperate times, and as intellectuals had more things to reflect upon, such as social conditions or lasting predicaments, a new film movement has born in post-war Italy: Neo-realism. This contemporary film movement intended to express new perspectives in social, economic or political issues. The actors were, in general, non-professional ones, mainly locals. The popularity of Neo-realist observational movies reached its peak during the Italian Spring. They were mainly shot in uncontrolled environments by moving around the camera, which sometimes created unpleasant takes [1]. As well as the necessity of the developments in camera technology (size and weight of cameras), the technology of recording location sound was vital [2]. At the beginning of Neo-realism, there was no synchronized sound with the medium. However, when the portable synch-sound equipments became available, persuasiveness of the images and the fidelity between the images and sound gained credibility [3]. Little Fugitive (1953) falls around this era, in which recording the location sound was possible and shooting movies in natural locations were taken granted.

Little Fugitive (1953) is a movie about a seven-year-old boy who misunderstands a joke of his brother and runs out of the house until he is found by his brother that evening. We witness to one-day-long adventure of this little 'fugitive' as the camera focuses on him, as well as the vibrant chaos of Coney Island. The film doesn’t only fall into the category of drama or adventure, but also observational documentary. It is a beautiful document about Coney Island in 50s. Sequences of the film show us the rush of the crowd after a sudden rain or the people lying down at the beach of Coney Island.

One may wonder if people would act naturally in the presence of a camera, but Little Fugitive seems to have solved that problem
with a concealed strap-on camera. The border between the fictional narrative and documentary is so thin that sometimes you forget about the story of this little boy; instead you find yourself in Coney Island, witnessing the flow of lives of people at those times [4]. The presence of environmental interaction drives the film and renders its story telling more realistically. Consequently, Little Fugitive’s photography-based co-directors, Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin, have influenced the establishment of the physical environment of the film. Although they are accustomed to represent reality through photography as their original work, this time, they establish it on a different media: film.

Andrzej Wajda’s Katyn (2007) is another way of representing reality. Wajda, one of the best-known directors of Poland, revisited the Katyn massacre at the age of 81 with his film. The film depicts the extermination of Polish officers by the Soviet Army in the Katyn forest. He enriched the storytelling by two documentary footages shown during the movie. The documentaries are shot after the massacre at Katyn forest, one presenting the massacre as a Soviet crime (the documentary was made by the Germans for the purpose of propaganda), the other as a German crime (made by the Soviets in order to cover up their deeds). The scene in which each prisoners are one by one shot in the head and dumped into a mass grave emphasizes the grim, concealed truth and underscores Stalin’s guilt [5]. Since it is not possible to have a footage about the massacre itself, the film is not only a quintessence that brings lights on historical facts, but also helps us to understand what people might have felt or lived through around those times, along with the heaviness of the truth.

"Every film is a documentary of its actors"
--Jean-Luc Godard

References:[1] "Voyages of Discovery: The Cinema of Frederick Wiseman", by Barry Keith Grant, University of Illinois Press, 1992[2] "Vittorio De Sica: Contemporary Perspectives", by Howard Curle and Stephen Snyder, University of Toronto Press, 2000[3] "Introduction to Documentary, Second Edition", by Bill Nichols, Indiana University Press, 2010[4] "Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality", by Siegfried Kracauer, Princeton University Press, 1997[5] "European Directors and Their Films: Essays on Cinema", by Bert Cardullo, Scarecrow Press, 2012

Saturday, November 3, 2012

When one is out of words in claiming the obvious stupidity and futility of a cause, songs can come in handy.

My first two suggestions date back to the mystic year of '69.
CCR has a typical Woodstock/classic rock tone, and E. Starr rather a funky one. Blonde Redhead shows up as a modern, alternative, indie way of emotionally protesting war.

Friday, October 5, 2012

A supergroup composed of Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes and M. Ward (solo and She & Him). They met during individual tours & concerts, gathered in 2004 and published their first album in 2009.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Here are some of the French songs, i.e. chansons, that I used to listen at the age of 12 in 1998, at home in Ankara, with all my friends left in high school in Istanbul, during a weekend with anxiety of leaving family for the following weekdays and temporary excitement of building a small car model:

Monday, May 7, 2012

I cannot say that I always agree with the selections of the Academy, however I am not going to hide that I watched this video countless times. Both the presentation and the joyful speech, I like everything about it and it's my all time favorite acceptance speech. It always gives me a smile. We see what a nice life Meryl Streep is having there, full of success, satisfaction, love, joy and happiness. She's such a woman and such an incomparable actress.

Monday, April 9, 2012

"I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach."

--Alfred Hitchcock

The very fist time I've heard about Alfred Hitchcock's name was through his cameo appearances. Actually, I've come to know his name much later than hearing about his cameos. He was, to me, the famous Hollywood director that appears in all his movies, which is also known to be his trademark. Then, it was much later that I found myself in the frenzy of Hitchcock's cinema. I've watched almost all his movies and in every one of them I had one eye on catching "where did he hide himself this time?"

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo appearance in Frenzy (1972): In the center of a crowd, wearing a bowler hat, he is the only one not applauding the speaker.

"A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it."
--Alfred Hitchcock

He might be a guy smoking in a train station (The Lady Vanishes (1938)), or the man sitting in a hotel lobby (Torn Curtain (1966)), or he might be in a photo that one of the characters are looking at (Dial M for Murder (1954)), or a random guy in a crowd that watches the crime seen (Frenzy (1972))...He might be anywhere.

Out of his 52 movies, he made 39 cameos. Enjoy this short video of his cameo appearrances, if you're interested:

The Artist showed to directors that you can still come up with a nostalgic idea and the audience can still love it. Personally, even though I think that the reason why it won the Best Movie and Best Director awards at Oscars is mainly because the academy likes movies with a story based on "Cinema" "The history of cinema", "The love of cinema", etc., it, indeed, was a creative come up by Michel Hazanavicius (the director and the writer of the movie). It got exceptional reviews from the most prestigious film critics, because we all LOVE cinema. We all LOVE this genius, creative form of art, we all LOVE to please ourselves by witnessing others' lives during the delicious moments of over one hour. And The Artist is all about these.

The Artist (2011)

I knew the main actor of the movie, Jean Dujardin, through the successful TV series called "Un Gars et Une Fille" (A Guy and A Girl) that I've been watching over three years, since I came to France. I can say, I've improved my French by watching this 26 minutes series everyday and enjoyed thoroughly with the funny scripts written by Alexandra Lamy (Jean Dujardin's wife) and performed by them.

The Artist (2011)

That's being said, back to The Artist, Jean Dujardin, who is undeniably very successful in making people laugh, performs a famous actor, George Valentin, in 1920s (during the silent film era). However, the transition from silent movies to the talking ones makes it hard for Valentin to confront the end of an era. A young lady that he accidentally meets tries to help him to get over his difficulties and reminds him that he can still do what he does best: acting. The Artist is a movie all about love, pride, glory, jealousy and envy.

The Sunset Blvd. is based on the story of a silent movie star who was left aside by her funs and the movie industry with the initialization of the sound film. The movie is marvelous and interesting at the same time when you look up for a little background information about the cast, the main actress, Gloria Swanson (as Norma Desmond) is a real silent movie star in real life. She contributed to this masterpiece with her real story also. The movie is about the passage of Hollywood to the talkies which Swanson has experienced herself. Swanson immortalized the silent movie director Cecil B. DeMille, who appeared as himself in the movie and his movies were famous for their endings with Swanson saying: "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up". And as a tribute to the silent movies era, Sunset Blvd. is closed up with Norma Desmond (Swanson) saying the same line.

Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Don't you think, cinema is still experiencing a transition with 3D movies nowadays? Do you like silent movies?

for lots of interesting story on the screening of Sunset Blvd., please read this wiki page. and I'll leave you here with the excellent last scenes of these two movies:

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Florence is like a fairy jumping from one genre to another and singing aloud the whole time with a strong and shaking voice. All the creatures around find themselves following her. I feel like it's the rabbit, the bear, the river, the bee and all the others singing in the background with her.

Then, recently at work, I've heard No Light, No Light over and over and got a crush on it! After days of listening, I could classify it as religious-epic-indie :P. It's that song that pushed me to write about Florence because it filled me up with emotions (together with 'What the water gave me', a hymn for water). About the latter, she said:

"It's a song for the water, because in music and art what I'm really interested in are the things that are overwhelming. The ocean seems to me to be nature's great overwhelmer. When I was writing this song I was thinking a lot about all those people who've lost their lives in vain attempts to save their loved ones from drowning. It's about water in all forms and all bodies. It's about a lot of things; Virginia Woolf creeps into it, and of course Frida Kahlo, whose painfully beautiful painting gave me the title."

Not surprisingly, these songs are from the Ceremonials [2011] album that really has a ceremonial sound, or a gospel one, if you want.

And yes, Kahlo has a painting called What the water gave me (Lo Que el Agua Me Dio). And the theme of the song is Virginia Woolf's death; her walking into the water with her pockets filled with stones.

While I was writing my MS thesis during the lovely summer of 2011, I spent almost all my working time in a lovely coffee house called Cofeina at the Politechniki square, Warsaw-Poland. This list is a tribute to that sunny time of intellectual endeavour.

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Dust and Water Studios

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Dust and Water Studios is a blog about cinema, photography and music. It's been a product of three colourful and curious minds trying to communicate daily-friendly-artistic ideas over distances of thousand of kilometers...